Dahoud tops list of nine noms for Carolina Cup

DUC DE SAVOIE CARRIED Jeff Murphy to victory in the Camden Plate last spring in Camden. He will give the Carolina Cup feature a try next weekend.

C-I (Camden, S.C.) sports editorAfter not placing any higher than sixth in his first three starts as a steeplechaser in 2012, Dahoud got the hang of things later that fall.Mrs. S.K. Johnston Jr.’s 7-year-old gelding closed its 2012 campaign by breaking its maiden in winning a $25,000 maiden chase at Far Hills, N.J., on Oct. 20, before making it two in a row by taking the $50,000 AFLAC Supreme Hurdle Stakes at Georgia’s Callaway Gardens two weekends later.Now, the Jack Fisher-trained jumper will try for the hat trick when Dahoud leads a nine-jumper contingent which was nominated into the $50,000 Carolina Cup feature chase at the Springdale Race Course on Saturday, March 30. Nominations closed on Tuesday with scratches set for next Wednesday. The 81st running of the Camden spring classic has reverted to being the first leg of the National Steeplechase Association’s Sport of Kings Novice Series. The $50,000 Queens Cup in Charlotte, on April 27, and the $75,000 Marcellus Frost, to be run at the Iroquois Steeplechase in Nashville on May 11, round out the three race series.Before being converted to jumping in 2012, Dahoud ran on the flat for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer having won at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. The New Zealand-bred has earned more than $186,000 in 19 career starts.Hall of Fame trainer and part-time Camden resident, Janet Elliot, had a pair of nominees in Gregory Hawkins’ Alajmal, which finished second in last fall’s $50,000 William Entenmann Memorial Hurdle Stakes at Belmont Park before the now 5-year-old came home a strong third in last fall’s $100,000 Colonial Cup over the Springdale Race Course. The second Elliot-saddled nomination is Eugene Weymouth’s Wild for Gold. The 10-year-old made his first start over fences with a third in a maiden chase at the 2010 Colonial Cup and finished eighth in the Colonial Cup feature last fall.Another Hall Fame conditioner as well as a part-time Camdenite, Jonathan Sheppard, has Barnstorming pointed for next Saturday’s chase. The 7-year-old Thunder Gulch gelding is also owned by Sheppard and broke its maiden at first asking last fall in Aiken. Barnstorming was then fifth in the $75,000 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle Stakes at Far Hills and third in the AFLAC Supreme Hurdle Stakes.From the strong barn of Richard Valentine, who won last November’s Colonial Cup with Demonstrative, comes William Pape’s Fog Island. The 7-year-old gelding won the $75,000 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle Stakes last October and has a pair of seconds in maiden chases in Camden in the fall of 2010 and in the spring of 2011.Virginia-based trainer Jimmy Day, who sent out Carolina Cup winners Top of the Bill (2006) and Spy in the Sky (2010) --- both owned by Randleston Farm and part-time Camden residents Jim and Melinda Carter --- will try his luck in Camden with Duc de Savoie. The 7-year-old gelding and grandson of 1992 Kentucky Derby winner Lil E Tee, broke its maiden in last year’s Carolina Cup, winning the $25,000 Camden Plate.Neil Morris, who saddled 2005 Carolina Cup victor Sur La Tete has nominated another Kinross Corp. jumper in Saint Dynaformer. The6-year-old Florida-bred broke its maiden over fences third time out with a win at Montpelier in November 2011 and then was second in the $75,000 Michael G. Walsh Novice Stakes at Saratoga last August.Betsy Mead’s Forgotten Man is a 5-year-old gelding trained by Doug Fout, who saddled Orison, winner of the 2007 Carolina Cup which, also was run as a novice stakes. Forgotten Man has made five career starts, all over fences, with a win at Great Meadow last May. He was third in both the Entenmann Memorial and Foxbrook champion stakes.Veteran trainer Tom Voss sent in the name of Fox Ridge Farm’s Ahgogo. The 5-year-old gelding made three starts over fences last fall and broke its maiden in its final race of the year, a maiden chase at Charleston in November.

Tickets and parking spaces for the Carolina Cup are still on sale with spots in most reserved parking areas still on sale.To purchase tickets and/or to receive further information on the Carolina Cup, please call the Carolina Cup Racing Association office at 432-6513 or (800) 780-8117 or visit the Carolina Cup Website located at www.carolina-cup.org.Sheppard strong in Charleston: Jonathan Sheppard, American steeplechasing’s all-time leading trainer, showed emphatically that he is ready for the 2013 racing season when he swept all four races at the inaugural Charleston Trials at Stono Ferry Race Course on Sunday.The inaugural spring program at the course featured four training races, and the Racing Hall of Fame trainer and part-time Camden resident, kicked off the card with a three-quarter-length victory by his Brilliant Match in the one-mile maiden flat race. Danielle Hodsdon, who lives in Camden during the winter months, rode the winner.The second flat race, an open contest at 1 3/8 miles, featured the match-up of Country Cousin and Cuse, both nominated into Saturday’s $50,000 Budweiser Imperial Cup (Gr. 3) at the Aiken Spring Steeplechase. But Sheppard stole the show when his Bluegrass Summer won by three-quarters of a length over Oakwood Stable’s Country Cousin. Karen Gray’s Cuse finished third.Camden’s Bernie Dalton rode Bluegrass Summer, and he also was aboard Bill Backer’s Tuxedo Park for a one-length score in the first division of the 1 7/8-mile maiden training hurdle. For the second division, Sheppard put Mark Watts in the irons for Inauguration’s 1 1/2-length victory. Sushine Numbers eyes Aiken feature: Sunshine Numbers, who won the 2011 Carolina Cup, is among five jumpers nominated into Saturday’s $50,000 Budweiser Imperial Cup at the 47th annual Aiken Spring Races.First post time for the six-race program at Ford Conger Field is 1 p.m.Owned by Camden’s Sue Sensor and trained by Camden’s Arch Kingsley, Sunshine Numbers won the 2011 Camden spring classic by a record 27 ¼ lengths. The now-11-year-old made two starts in 2012, capping the year with a 10 ½-length romp in the $20,000 Hobkirk Hill at last November’s Colonial Cup in Camden.Oakwood Stable’s Country Cousin and Irvin Naylor’s Pullyourfingerout, winners of the Budweiser Imperial Cup in 2011 and 2012, have also been nominated by trainers Julie Gomena and Brianna Slater, respectively. Owner-trainer Karen Gray will send Cuse to Aiken while trainer Doug Fout sent in the name of Extraextraordinary.